


Fénix

by DorMarunt



Series: La magnitud del deseo [2]
Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Slurs, Suicide Attempt, but the last thing in Pandora's box was hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:13:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24107290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DorMarunt/pseuds/DorMarunt
Summary: Martin is working through some shit.
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Palermo | Martín Berrote
Series: La magnitud del deseo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1739359
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	Fénix

**Author's Note:**

> I also have a number of issues to work out.

It had been over a year since Andrés died in the assault of the Royal Mint. Martín used to keep track of the days in a demented ritual that he eventually stopped, hoping it would somehow make it hurt less. It didn’t.

He woke up either very late or very early in the day - hard to tell, it was dark outside - and a bottle rolled off the couch where he’d fallen asleep mere hours ago. Sleep kept evading him, regardless of what he tried - wearing himself out, meditation, pills, it didn’t matter. Sleep - if it finally came - was more painful than being awake. 

Martín found himself constantly oscillating between feeling hollow and full to the brim of blind rage. Of course he’d expected it to happen sooner or later; maybe even in a similar situation, but he refused to accept it. Had he been there, he’d have gotten Andrés out alive, he would have blown the whole building, the whole _world_ to pieces and would have dragged him out by the hair. 

But Martín said no. When Sergio came to ask him to be a part of the heist at the Royal Mint, he'd said no. He couldn’t bear to be near Andrés again, he didn’t trust not to beat him to a pulp the second they met again. 

It was his fault that he refused to take part in the heist. Thinking only of himself, stupid and selfish and now look at how it all turned out. Starting with the second he decided to join Andrés all those years ago, it was all a string of stupid decisions, one after the other. He remained loyal, even after falling in love, even after carrying all that weight inside him for a decade, accepting to be pushed to the background whenever a new woman appeared, defining himself after the other man’s needs. He was the one that blew everything that night at the monastery, when they kissed, when, for the briefest moment he thought he’d finally _won._ Why did he have to engage instead of evade, like he’d done for so long. Stupid. Another stupid decision was to then let Andrés back into his apartment, into his life. Into his soul and into his very body. Stupid, stupid. And then to chase him away, as if his own life had meaning without his twin soul. 

It clearly didn’t. He tried, he tried for so long to pick himself and build himself up, to hang on to even a tiniest shred of _something_ that gave him meaning. But the river of bad decisions kept flowing. So there he was, once more, in front of another monumentally stupid choice. 

He’d been drinking all day, raging, crying. He took another look at the revolvers they’d stolen from that collector in Vienna, and his thoughts focused on one thing. Why drag this out more than necessary; after all a soul could carry only so much pain without breaking. Why fool himself; in the end no one would miss him, and the needle that balanced the world would not move an inch one way or another if he left.

He loaded one revolver, missing a couple of times, hands shaking wildly. His head was heavy with pain, doubt, reeling from the lack of sleep and proper nourishment. He felt sick. He put the barrel in his mouth, closing his eyes tightly. 

Now. Now, or never. 

He squeezed his eyes, and squeezed the trigger.

A faint clack, and he instantly dropped the gun to the floor, falling into a crying heap next to it. It had misfired, and through shuddering sobs he thought, _yet another thing I fuck up_.

He fell asleep there, on the floor, next to the revolver. Once the adrenaline wore off, he slipped into the deepest sleep he’d had in months. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


Martín stumbled over the last step out of the bar, taking a pathetic leap into the alleyway followed by a few running steps before regaining balance. He was way too high to pull that night, even though, _by gods_ he tried. He even found himself flirting with a woman at some point, in a baffling attempt to get her male companion into his lap. He had to get out of there and either find a new bar to pick up someone to fuck, or - more realistically - to go home and pass out. If he could make it there, that is.

He stopped for a second, lighting a cigarette and just as he was about to try and identify the way home, he noticed at the edge of his vision that a guy had followed him out of the bar. Martín turned and stared at the man, curiously. Definitely not his type, but at that point he really didn’t care so long as they were willing.

The man - tall, dark gelled hair and an undeniably _bad_ air about him - snarled at him. “Hey _finocchio_ , what are you looking at?” He approached Martín, who was too intrigued to leave, despite the tiny voice inside his head that was screaming _leave, leave now. Don’t engage._

Martín measured the man, head to toe, and gave back a mocking, “Do you think I’d even look at you? You think you’re hot shit, huh?”

Before he realized what had happened he found himself slammed against the wall, the cigarette falling to the ground as he tried to catch himself. The thug grabbed his neck with one rough hand, the other searching between their bodies. And then Martín felt it - a blade against the inside of his upper thigh, right under his balls. His eyes widened, breath caught under the rough palm around his neck and he desperately tried to think of a way to get away, to _live_. 

Martín froze the second he realised two other guys came up behind his aggressor. All his senses were on alert. _I can get them_ , he told himself, even though he absolutely couldn’t. He was way too high and also a little bit drunk, and in absolutely no shape to defend himself. He pushed the man away but found himself getting on the tips of his toes instead, once the knife pushed upwards. 

“I’ve seen you in there. What are you, a fag?” He spat at Martín’s face, and the man just squeezed his eyes. “You are not welcome here, go to wherever the fuck you degenerates go, don’t pollute the world for the rest of us.”

Mercifully, the hands retracted and Martín felt like he could once more draw breath, but it was immediately pushed out of him when a heavy punch landed on the side of his head. He tried to remain upright, weakly leaning against the wall, but another blow, to his ear this time, threw him to the ground. A loud, sharp sound was at the forefront of everything, interspersed with curse words from the three guys. And the blows continued to land, on his ribs, his legs, his face - despite the fact that he’d curled into a ball, covering his head with his arms. Blow after blow, he felt himself detach from his body and slip away, and all he could see between swollen eyelids were sporadic flashes of legs, boots, and leather. 

He prayed that someone would exit the bar or walk by, but no one did. Time stopped making sense way, way too many blows ago, and all Martín hoped now was that it would all stop. Even though every inch of his body was in agonizing pain, each new blow still added to that pain - he could not comprehend how. Since death would just not come, he finally decided to give up. He relaxed his body, letting his hands drop, rolling onto his back. He let out a sigh. 

The kicking stopped abruptly.

“Fuck. I think he’s dead.”

“Fuck.” Martín felt a boot connect with his ribs, but he couldn’t react even if he tried.

“Shit. Let’s get out of here!”

The sound of footsteps fading away rapidly. Then silence. Death?

* * *

Martín woke up in the distorted sound of sirens, his whole world a flash of neon and strange beeps. 

“Don’t try to move, you are badly hurt. We’re taking you to a hospital,” the paramedic said. “You took quite a beating.”

He drifted on and off throughout the next few days, a host of nurses and doctors working round the clock to put him back together. He was out of the hospital in three weeks - three weeks in which he did not speak to a single person. Not the hospital staff, and especially not the police that came to take his statement. Three weeks in which he had his own moment of clarity. 

Laying there on that hospital bed, trying to breathe through the constant pain - he refused the narcotics they’d initially given him to keep the pain in check - his mind seemed to heal alongside his body. He’d been in pain before, he’d been on the brink of death as well, and not just once. But that time he felt that it was different. Finally, after _years_ , he felt that feeling, that beautiful feeling of having solved a seemingly impossible equation, of having found the final piece of the puzzle. 

Sure, the pain was still there, the heartbreak; this black hole of hurt at the core of his chest that never seemed able to close. That would never not be with him. But he’d have to find new ways to deal with it, with all his fucked up ways. It didn’t have to be elegant ways - this was not his redemption, he would not turn into a “good person”. But. 

He wanted to live. 

Andrés had known he would die, so he decided to truly live. Meanwhile, for Martin, the certainty of life made him want to die. 

No. That would not do anymore.

Why throw it all away? Everything can’t have been in vain; all the pain, the heartbreak. All that love, as much misery as it had brought him. No. He’d live. He’d find a way to live, and make it worth it. Make the plan a reality. Even though they didn’t get to melt that gold _together_ , he’d carry out that beautiful, impossible plan, and get that gold out. For Andrés. For his legacy. For _their_ legacy. For The Plan.

  
  


A couple of months later, Sergio knocked on his door. 

“Martín. May I?”


End file.
